This month, the five contestants were set two specific challenges. The first was to spruce up their eBay shops, after which experts at the company would judge whose was best. Second, all five were given an identical hamper of chocolates to auction over three days on the weekend before Valentine's Day, to be judged on who sold it for the most money regardless of how much they spent listing and promoting the item.

To help with the first, Matt Priddle, head of events and education at eBay UK, used a conference call with the contestants to suggest they consider how search engines view a shop, from the top-left. This means using words that people might search on high on the front page, such as in the shop description.

The contestants were already following a lot of Priddle's other advice - all five were already using a shop banner and search box on their normal auction listings, encouraging customers to visit their shop. But only Clare Tomkins had sent out an emailed newsletter. Customers can sign up to receive newsletters from a shop even if the owner hasn't realised this: "You may already have people subscribing to your email marketing," Priddle points out.

Tomkins reckons the newsletter facility, for which she has more than a dozen subscribers, is useful for telling customers when she has new books in stock: people had been asking her to let them know when this happened.

There was mixed news about the cost of listing in shops: on February 22, eBay cut the monthly listing fee per item from 5p to 3p, but raised the sales charges, from 5.25% to 6.75% of the sale value up to £30. However, shop items now appear in eBay searches, although after auction items.

Roger Eigenheer asked about linking to external pages, something which other contestants have found problematic. Priddle admitted the rule was complicated, and sometimes misapplied: "You're allowed to link to an information-only page, so long as within two clicks you can't purchase an item," he said. "Things can go a little awry, pages can be pulled down when they are in compliance with the policy." He advised contestants to link to external sites from their About Me pages, rather than item listings.

Paul Edwards said he has received inconsistent judgements in this area, with one auction listing being removed by eBay because of an external link, followed by an apology when he complained, followed by another listing being pulled and then another apology.

Low starting price

All the contestants decided to start their Valentine's hamper at 99p with no reserve, and all offered free postage: Stuart Reed started by charging £4.95, but then edited the listing to remove it after noticing similar auctions charging nothing.

Tomkins launched her auction first, offering to write a romantic poem for, or on behalf of, the winner. "Luckily, I'm married to an English teacher, so I reckon between us we can come up with a poem," she said.

Denice Purdie and Eigenheer both decided to donate all the income to charity, while Reed donated 50%: eBay can make such donations automatically to a range of charities through its MissionFish system, with a ribbon logo added to listings.

All three chose charities with which they have a link: Eigenheer chose Cancer Research UK, as part of a fundraising programme he is undertaking through five bicycle trials leading up to him taking part in L'Etape du Tour, in which amateurs cycle stages of the Tour de France.

Edwards hit on the most dramatic way to promote the hamper: cross-promotion with a custom-built conservatory, the kind which he has tried to sell at £1,495, but this time would start at 99p with no reserve. "Combining them, I should get a few hits," he said before starting the auctions. "If it goes wrong, it's going to cost a bit."

Although their bids were close in value on Saturday, Eigenheer ended up raised almost twice as much as runner-up Tomkins, whose auction was a day ahead of the others, and almost three times as much as Purdie, who sells gift hampers as part of her normal business and who, like Eigenheer, donated all the money to charity and listed the item in two categories.

Although he paid for some extra promotion, Eigenheer spent less than others. So what was his trick? "It was definitely a matter of promotion," he said: despite being in a hotel as a result of work, he stayed up until 3am photographing the hamper - using red wrapping and crepe paper from a nearby card shop - and fine-tuning the words. He used the title "Gourmet Chocolate Valentine's Hamper - Free 24hr P&P", having noticed that "chocolate" was a more popular word on eBay Pulse than "Valentine's": everyone else put the latter first.

Eigenheer also used an eBay shop facility to generate leaflets advertising current items for sale, and left these in his local bicycle and Cancer Research charity shops.

Meanwhile, eBay judged that Tomkins had the best shop. "She's created great content, signed people up to her newsletter, and we love the link to her blog," says Dan Wilson, the firm's UK community manager, adding that Purdie's shop looks best.

Tomkins said that the changes she made after the conference call - displaying the shop description at the top of the page and writing guides to appear elsewhere on eBay, linking to her shop - increased traffic within days. Of the shop description, she said: "I've changed it using eBay Pulse, to make sure I have plenty of keywords to do with my items."

Edwards made a loss selling his hamper, but had bigger fish to fry: he sold his first conservatory through eBay, with the 99p starting price rising to £500 with an hour to go, then - during a nervous hour which Edwards spent hitting the browser refresh button - rocketing to £1,216.

He made a small profit on the item, and gained a lot of attention: "There was a couple of thousand of hits on my pages. It's certainly a way forward for the competition - I'm going to try a couple more," Edwards says.

The Valentine's hamper challenge

Roger Eigenheer: £78. Started at 99p with no reserve, free P&P. Highlighted to appear first in searches, listing in two categories including his usual selling area of cycling, 100% going to charity. Cost of listing: £22. Received 21 bids, ended at 21:30 Sunday.

Clare Tomkins: £41. Started at 99p with no reserve, free P&P. "Featured Plus" item with six photos and subtitle. Cost of listing: £11.35. Received 11 bids, ended at 22:29 Saturday.

Denice Purdie: £28. Started at 99p with no reserve, free P&P. Promotion on eBay homepage, listing in two categories, 100% going to charity. Cost of listing: £50. Received 18 bids, ended at 19:00 Sunday.

Stuart Reed: £23.50. Started at 99p with no reserve, free P&P (revised from £4.95). Standard listing in two categories, 50% going to charity. Cost of listing: 30p. Received 16 bids, ended at 10:09 Sunday.

Paul Edwards: £13.49. Started at 99p with no reserve, free P&P. Cross-promotion with auction of conservatory starting at 99p, featured listing. Cost of listing: £10.11. Received 17 bids, ended at 21:45 Sunday.

Clare Tomkins reckons she is working more efficiently than a few weeks ago: "I'd make a bag, parcel it up, go to the computer and see where it had to go." Now, she does such tasks in batches, and visits the post office just once a day, rather than twice. She took Matt Priddle's advice to write online guides which link back to a seller's shop: by lunchtime the day after the call, she had written one and was planning half a dozen more, mainly on children's books: "I used to be a primary school teacher, so I've got things to say."

Denice Purdie has found that gift sets between £10 and £20 sell well, and was hoping to sell several for Valentine's Day. She finds auctions work best, followed by Buy It Now offers, with shop-only items last. "We never put reserve prices on - people like to get a bargain," she says of auctions. She plans to use more categories of eBay to gain more attention, including soap-making kits and wedding favours: "I got an email from someone through eBay, asking about wedding favours. People write you a question and it gives you a good idea, you go with it," she says.

Roger Eigenheer is sticking to auctions starting at 99p, which he finds works better than other methods: one bicycle part stayed on his shop for two weeks at £2.50 without selling, but he then auctioned it for more than £6. Even with shop items now appearing in eBay searches, he prefers auctions, given his main items are second-hand bicycles: "It's hard for me to value my stock. People prefer to start at a low price and sometimes get carried away." He has started using a shipping agent to deal with couriers and the Post Office, at a cost of 50p to £1 per item.

Although he had sold a few accessories, Paul Edwards had not sold any custom-built conservatories through auctions starting at realistic prices, despite spending £280 on eBay listing fees, which are linked to auction starting prices. So he decided to change course: "I think 99p is the only way forward," he says, of his experiment to list a conservatory at a minimal price and risk a big loss. "It's a complete change of strategy for the rest of the competition." It paid off, at least on its first attempt, as he sold his first conservatory for £1,216, making a small profit.

When interviewed, Stuart Reed was waiting for his feedback to reach 10, allowing him to pay £9.99 per item for an appearance on eBay's homepage. He has started his auctions of new sporting goods at realistic prices to avoid losses, but plans to start homepage-featured items lower: "What it should do is drive people to your shop." He has sold more fitness equipment than expected, as opposed to outdoor sports kit such as for canoeing: "I think it's probably the time of year, and very keen prices," he says, adding that he now wants to increase sales of outdoor goods.